more on saints and history

Gabriel has offered some very serious comments on the post below concerning history and hagiography, pondering how Voegelin might be useful to framing the problems at hand. He has also posted a very helpful post on this topic on his own blog, which I heartily recommend. Once I have had time to grapple with all that Gabriel has presented, I will comment on the matter over on his site. I will be in Dallas until Wednesday night, so other than a post that should go up today, I will probably be web-silent until later in the week.

an ochlophobist's memphis

I plan to start a new series of posts. I imagine, dear reader, that upon learning this you might be thinking, “ah, another series of posts our Ochlophobist will not finish.” Fair enough. I am not sure that this series will have a definitive end; it may well just continue to expand for the duration of the life of the blog.

This series will consist of images and brief descriptions of the ochlophobic places in this city I have come to love, Memphis. Being an ochlophobist, I believe that we must find such places, and that it is meet and right to honor them.

Pictured above is one of my favorite views in Memphis – the access road which borders the liturgical eastern property line to the back of my home parish. This time of year it is one of those places in which one can hide in a bit of nature while being in the heart of the city. In the stretch directly behind the church, it smells of wet Memphis earth and wisteria. The flowers of the wisteria have now gone, but the scent remains, and while one would be inclined to reflect on the contrast of its heavy sweetness with the terrene scent of wet earth, if one lingers here for awhile the two smells are found to perfectly befit one another, even becoming the one scent of water, earth, vine, in chorus.

There is also my friend, the pallet, which has been there at the edge of the church’s property for some time, settled and in its place of moss, water, earth, and grass. Next to pallet is a small pvc drain pipe. It gives an astonishingly loud, for its size, gurgling sound, followed by a petite rumble that sounds like a baby earthquake, even to the point of being almost cute, before releasing its water, as it is pictured doing. It greets me with such a toddler like dignity on the mornings before First Hour, as it did this Friday morning. Mayhap fourscore years, yes; or not, the toil and travail, no doubt, but also the blessing of pipes and small roads burdened with the green of life, and the smell of the dirt from which God made me. Here, in this place.

history and hagiography

Student of history and reader of this blog Nick has left a comment in a post below which I would like to address. Consider:

A final thought to leave with you: how does what we are saying impact the study of hagiography? Saints' lives are increasingly appreciated by Byzantinists as a source of social and cultural information, but of course most of them ignore the miraculous content (and even explain away principled courage, in the case of many of the anti-iconoclast saints). As an Orthodox Christian, I believe "a priori" that the miracles of the saints are possible -- the discussion of the Ascended Christ above provides, I think, a good background for this understanding. But I don't know if it necessarily follows that one should believe all the miracles attributed to the saints. Some Vitae are worse than others in this respect: almost like Bugs Bunny cartoons, with bad guys (i.e. Roman officials) being slapped around in various ways by the triumphant martyrs who, however, eventually allow themselves to be executed. My rule of thumb has been to see whether miracles are probable, in a spiritual sense; that is, if they are straightforward and edifying, like the miracles of our Lord and the Apostles and the Prophets (especially Elisha!) recorded in the Scriptures -- as opposed to spectacular prodigies that don't really have much spiritual purpose. If one accepts this for what it is, a rule of thumb and not an infallible criterion, I don't think it's too presumptious or overly rationalistic. I would be interested to read your thoughts on this subject.

There are some important things to consider here. I am not a historian, thus I cannot approach this question from the vantage point of a professional historian. I can say that the question of the historicity of hagiographic material in the Orthodox Church is a common one put forth by intellectuals struggling to come to terms with Orthodoxy. I think it safe to say that Nick, who implies in his writing that he is a pious Orthodox Christian, does not attempt, as an individual, to discern the spiritual probability of the historicity of a hagiographic account, but would rather in some fashion seek to submit to the mind of the Church, or perhaps seek to be within the boundaries of thought which the Church might outline for us, even if only through something of a pious intuition.

I offer several occasional thoughts, probably not worth much:

One recalls Peter Abelard, who got into trouble with the monks at the Abbey of Saint-Denis when he spoke contrary to their traditions concerning St. Denys. When I think of the project of correcting pious hagiography with "solid historical data" or some such thing, Abelard always comes to mind, and with him the image, or rather caricature, of the brash, arrogant, effete, young intellectual eager to correct his outdated elders. That Abelard and Héloïse named their son after a newly imported astronomical technology, rather than giving him a Christian name, is quite fitting. Ever seeking the new, disdaining the traditions, and finding one has been emasculated on the way - this is the image and lesson of Abelard.

But Abelard and his kind are the extreme, however common they happen to be today.

One might also consider the important work Great Historical Enterprises: Problems in Monastic History, by David Knowles. I have a bit of a peculiar love for this topic, and reread Knowles' book each year or so. Knowles deals with the Bollandists, the Maurists, the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, and the Rolls Series, and the roles that these play in the development of modern ecclesiastical historiography. He addresses the fact that it was sometimes out of motivations of piety mixed with all manner of manuscript problems that hagiographic textual developments were discovered or intuited. But the final question that I have after reading Knowles is this: where do we go post-Bollandists? How do we venerate St. Denys? In accordance with tradition, or in accordance with current historical theory? I can very much sympathize with the Bollandists and their work (work which I find endlessly fascinating and intellectually stimulating - the Acta Sanctorum and Analecta Bollandiana are as fun as a Saturday morning with no kids in tow at a Seminary library gets), but at the same time I must ask where exactly does this ever intense and never complete critical hagiography take us?

I read recently that Pope St. Leo the Great declared a particular hagiography apocryphal, and I recall reading passages within various of the Fathers in which they assess certain hagiographies in the same manner. Those with authority within the Church have at times declared certain pious stories to not in any way relate to what we now broadly speak of as history or historical data. I have heard of a recently canonized saint in a country with a small Orthodox church (peripheral in the Orthodox world, a country not in North America) who was well known to have been an adulterer and fiend, or so I have been told. He was apparently canonized by this small Orthodox national church in order to grant that church a recent saint of its own and as a result of local ecclesial political posturing of some sort. I have no idea if such a story is true, but let us assume that it is. It may well be that someone comes forth with irrefutable historical evidence showing that the canonized saint was not so saintly. What then? Well, I imagine the cult of that saint will not flourish after such an event, but perhaps it would, for reasons of national pride or some such thing. Would it be wrong for someone in the future to refuse to venerate said saint because they had read and believed the evidence? I would say that this depends on the mind of the Church. If the hastily venerated saint becomes reasonably well established as a saint in the Church, particularly if venerated outside of just one Holy Synod, then one should venerate him. God will sort it all out, and we should have a natural disposition to mistrust ourselves and our beloved evidence. At a certain point, the cult of veneration of a given saint reaches a sort of "critical mass" and one must simply acknowledge that at that point the Holy Spirit has brought this life before the Church for veneration, and it is then not my place to ask questions.

It is in this spirit that I approach St. Denys. The tradition of the Church with regard to St. Deny's hagiography is very well established. Thus when I kiss his icon I think of his life as the Church taught it to me. It could possibly be historically true after all ---

but how?

Well, I return to a theory I have made use of before, then with regard to evolution. I believe that the "data" of the universe reflects, as a mirror of sorts, the state of man's soul back to man, both collectively and individually. Thus, in an age when doubt and disbelief reigns and in which man is forever seeking to discover the falsity in truth, so as to excuse himself, inevitably, from moral demands, low and behold the cosmos in its "data" gives us what we seek. Modern physicists and other scientists tell us that the mere presence of an observer changes the activity even the nature of what is being observed. It may be that in much of critical historiography we find what we really have been seeking, what our hearts really long for, suggestions that the whole bag of Christian piety is a bag of tricks. Perhaps this so blinds us that we do not see other forms of "data" that might lead to different conclusions.

Then again, it may well be that St. Denys came much later than the Church's hagiography teaches. I will venerate him as the Church has taught me to, if it turns out some of the details were chronologically off I suppose it will all get worked out in the eternity the Church baptizes me into. The important thing, so far as I can tell, is that I learn to know and to trust the Church's chronology over the time-orders of any other party. How you answer the questions on some history exam does not matter so much. The spirit with which you venerate matters greatly. And we should never take our agendas to Church, there are enough little Abelards.

I have been asked from time to time about the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, which for some reason is among the hardest hagiographic pills for converts to swallow (interestingly, I have even met converts from Catholicism who could not easily stomach the narrative, I suppose that modern Catholicism forms one with an image of a much more earthy, peasant Mary, and not quite the image of a three year old becoming a temple virgin). I am told by folks who have studied second temple Judaism that there is no way, in terms of the modern historical data and pertinent theory, that the story of Mary being taken to the Temple could be true "historically." Yet this is the perfect example of an important truth. It must have happened, for theological reasons. Just as it was theologically necessary for Christ to have been born of a virgin, it was theologically necessary for the Theotokos to have had a relationship with the Temple something akin to what is outlined in Orthodox hagiography. She is the Ark of the New Covenant, she is new burning bush, she is the Temple of the Living God. Obviously she is not going to stroll about Jerusalem with some sort of haphazard, occasional, and mundane relationship with the old and passing Temple. Now, could it be that some of the details of the Church's hagiographic telling of the Entrance are not quite "historically" accurate? I suppose this is possible, but what kind of petty Abelard wanna-be goes around proposing: no, she would have gone there at age 7, and she would not have been something akin to a Greek-style temple virgin, but rather a servant girl who remained in service there until marriage? What does it say about the state of our souls if we feel the need to nitpick away at the Church's narratives? What do we gain by having the all-holy Mary go to the temple a few years later and her doing a different sort of work there? Nothing, so far as I can tell. But we may well lose a fair amount through such efforts.

But is there a line to be drawn? Some hagiographies have been said to be apocryphal by Church leaders. I would be inclined to say this: there are three levels of hagiography for the Orthodox Christian. First is popular pious stories that have not been particularly codified by the Church. You should respect these for what they are, and respect the fact that they may be unto the salvation of others, but you probably do not always have to believe that every figure and collection of data is historically sound. Second, there are more formal collections of hagiographic material that exist within the Church. I am speaking of the lives of the saints as they are read in Orthodox Churches, and even those collections of lives which have been specifically approved by Holy Synods for use in Churches. These should be generally trusted, though it may well be that this or that detail is historically inaccurate. Third, you have those hagiographic references to the saints found in the Liturgy (and by that I especially include Matins and Vespers material, etc.). One should be very, very careful before questioning anything concerning these texts. To do so requires such a degree of care and authentic piety, it might be best left for only the most astute and holy of persons.

All that said, we should very much keep in mind that we Orthodox are not textual fundamentalists. Greeks, and Slavs, and Arabs do not think in the strict chronological terms that northern european Protestants do. I have sometimes had the impression, when watching a pious Greek or pious Russian listen to these sorts of concerns, that the pious Greek or Slav was wondering why the concerned anglo was so caught up with those particular details of the narrative. We former Prots tend to dissect from the bottom of things, in typical inductive fashion. Those from more mature Orthodox cultures tend to look at the same things from the top of the hierarchy of God's salvific order. But perhaps this is the difference between a person who looks at something via a method that seeks to take it and the whole universe apart, and someone who is looking at that same thing through the lens which always sees first that which holds all things together.

I have no idea if this in any way adequately addresses your concerns. And my usual disclaimer with regard to anything I write which might be construed as spiritual advice or teaching - your priest's direction concerning these topics matters, my thoughts do not.

the redeeming of the air.

How could He have called us if He had not been crucified, for it is only on the cross that a man dies with arms outstretched? Here, again, we see the fitness of His death and of those outstretched arms : it was that He might draw His ancient people with the one and the Gentiles with the other, and join both together in Himself. Even so, He foretold the manner of His redeeming death, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Myself.” (John xii. 32) Again, the air is the sphere of the devil, the enemy off our race who, having fallen from heaven, endeavours with the other evil spirits who shared his disobedience both to keep souls from the truth and to hinder the progress of those who are trying to follow it. The apostle refers to this when he says, “According to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience.” (Eph. ii. 2.) But the Lord came to overthrow the devil and to purify the air and to make “a way” for us up to heaven, as the apostle says, “through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.” (Heb. x. 20.) This had to be done through death, and by what other kind of death could it be done, save by a death in the air, that is, on the cross? Here, again, you see how right and natural it was that the Lord should suffer thus; for being thus “lifted up,” He cleansed the air from all the evil influences of the enemy. “I beheld Satan as lighting falling,” (Luke x. 18) He says; and thus He re-opened the road to heaven, saying again, “Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors.” (Psalm xxiv. 7.) For it was not the Word Himself Who needed an opening of the gates, He being Lord of all, not was any of his works closed to their Maker. No, it was we who needed it, we whom He Himself upbore in His own body – that body which He first offered to death on behalf of all, and then made through it a path to heaven.

- from The Incarnation of the Word of God, St. Athanasius

there are no strangers here... anymore.

Dear reader, we ochlophobists have no problem with rules, especially rules which govern crowds. Here are some new rules concerning commenting on this blog:

1. No more anonymous comments will be allowed.

2. You may comment using your real name, the name of your blog or a variation thereof, or an online moniker.

3. If you use an online moniker, you must use the same one each time you comment on this blog. If it becomes apparent that one writer is using multiple monikers on this blog, there will be one warning, and then the issuance of a formal, permanent, ban.

4. There are certain topics, rhetorical postures, and ideological agendas which might be brought into a thread but have nothing to do whatsoever with the topic of the post or the relevant discussion being had on the thread. Your Ochlophobist reserves the right to delete such comments as he sees fit, and plans to do so with greater frequency in the future. If there is something that you wish to write concerning which does not get allowed into the rhetorical mix here, feel free to start your own blog. If you want to discuss with me a deletion, or if there is something which you would like to see discussed on the blog, or if there is a question as to what is and what is not appropriate for discussion, feel free to email me at owenandjoy at bellsouth dot net. My name is Owen White, feel free to address me as Owen. Be aware that I am notoriously slow in responding to emails, but I usually do get to them. I respond to snail mail much more quickly, should you like to correspond with me in that humane manner, email me and I will send you my snail mail address.

5. Within Orthodoxy there are folks who believe all sorts of things - opinion is all over the place with regard to politics, morality, "lifestyle," and even, unfortunately theology, liturgy, the canons, even practical piety. But there are places where the Church has spoken with unequivocal clarity - concerning dogma, concerning the basic structure of the liturgy, concerning the basic parameters of piety, and at least concerning the outline of canonical norms. Orthodox might debate what is and what is not economia, but Orthodox, acting as Orthodox, do not debate whether or not the canons should ever be referred to at all. Of course, one will find bloggers calling themselves Orthodox who deride any reference to the canons as egregiously judicial - there are so-called Orthodox bloggers who promote masturbation as a part of a healthy human life, who promote homosex as in keeping with the path of theosis, who believe that the ordination of women is of paramount importance, who believe that Orthodoxy is one traditional religious expression among several or many that share substantial meaning in teaching, practice, or both. In my experience, there is no real conversation to be had with such persons, as the epistemological gulf is too wide to be crossed between those who adhere to such intellectual sicknesses and those who seek to submit to Orthodox intellectual boundaries. Argument in these instances, especially within the limits of most blog threads, is useless. This blog is written by an Orthodox who adheres to traditional (not necessarily traditionalist or anti-traditionalist) and normative Orthodox views on theology, dogma, piety, liturgy, and the like. This blog is written primarily for persons of like mind and persons who have an interest in such a view, and a respect for it, even if it is not one which they share. Now, the Scriptures and the Fathers teach us to be glad and rejoice when we are ridiculed. I think we who seek to submit our minds to the normative apparatus of knowledge which the Church provides should be thankful for the ridicule we have received from a few here. But even as the Scriptures and the Fathers teach thus they do not seem to teach that one must invite ridicule. It would seem appropriate for a host to curb the ridicule of himself and his guests in order to facilitate healthy conversation. The Fathers did not teach us to invite those who ridicule us to come and ridicule us during our liturgies or to come and ridicule us in our homes or cells. There is ridicule aplenty in the world, and it is appropriate for there to be some settings where it is not accepted as a form of discourse. I know that I have, at times, been guilty of responding in kind, and for this I beg the forgiveness of all my readers. But the ridicule of what is simply and clearly basic, traditional, normative Orthodox theology, piety, and mindset will no longer be tolerated in threads on this blog. There are plenty of other blogs to visit if one has a hankering for that sort of thing. Respectful disagreement is allowed, if kept within the confines of rule#4.

I thank you for your patience and your understanding, dear reader.

the senses and remembering

When thinking about the priest’s wife mentioned in the St. Olga post below, I could not remember her nationality. I thought she might be Scandinavian, but I do not recall a Scandinavian accent. While thinking about this it became clear to me that I could remember her voice better than I could remember what she looked like. Her voice is less vague in my memory than her appearance, it would seem. Of course I could be remembering it incorrectly.

But so thinking has caused me to reflect upon which of my senses has the most clear and generally accurate faculty of memory. Much has been written on sense and memory, but I had not really thought to place my senses in an order of remembering ability. Upon doing so, I came to this conclusion: I think that I remember best through the sense of smell, with touch as close second, if not tied for first. I would order the memory faculty of each of my senses thus, in order of greater degree of faculty, first to last:

1. Smell
1 or 2. Touch
3. Taste
4. Sound
5. Sight

I find that smell, touch, and taste are all keen and competent with regard to memory, there is a jump then to sound, which is decidedly less competent, and an even greater jump down to sight, which for me is the least competent of all as a remembering sense.

I wonder whether your list would be different than mine, dear reader? I also wonder what of our experiences in life, what of our rituals and habits, might influence one sense to have a greater faculty of memory than another? As I have written before, my current vocation as a coppersmith has taught me to touch in ways I did not before, I have learned to remember metal through touch, thus greatly elevating for me the faculty of remembering via touch. Have you, dear reader, had similar circumstances of life that have taught your senses to remember?

polystyrene tumbler culture vs. preservations of the real

The rudest waiter I ever encountered served me in a restaurant in Lancashire. He more or less threw the plates from the kitchen door, and glowered throughout. “What is the secret of your splendid smile?” I asked him. He bent down to my ear and spat: “You wouldn’t effing-well smile if you worked here, pal.” I also think it’s quite rude to be served unspeakable espresso in a polystyrene tumbler 10 times too big by a witless young person using the job as stop-gap while applying to reality-television shows for a more promising future. This happens every time I set foot in Britain.

The conclusion must be that Britons are unused to people, usually men, who consider waiting to be a real profession worthy of respect. French waiters certainly do. You can tell that by their aprons, bow-ties and age. And they work in proper cafés and restaurants, not branches of empires run from Seattle.

These chaps can carry an order for 14 different drinks in their heads, then deliver them all to your terrace table on one tray, while also advising the quickest way to the Eiffel Tower, shouting at a passing taxi driver and getting the change right. They are busy men doing important work. They have standing so, naturally, they may be brusque if you faff about, change all 14 orders - and do so in English. Imagine trying to order 14 different drinks in a London pub if you spoke only French.

- from Anthony Peregrine's relating actual French culture to Brit biases in The Telegraph.

my pedigree

I love this icon. It is from HTM, though I first saw it on OrthoWiki's Olga of Kiev page. I do not own a print of it yet.

I have been thinking of late of my own spiritual heritage. I suppose that I am a spiritual son of holy Rus, as it was in Russia that I first encountered Orthodoxy, and met Orthodox clerics and monks. My experiences there are forever impressed upon me.

When I got back to the states, I wanted to find someone knowledgeable to talk to about my experiences in Russia. I looked up Eastern Orthodox churches in the yellow pages. You may recall, dear reader, that at the time I was living in suburban Detroit. I started at the top of the list and by the time I called the fourth or fifth church I got someone on the line who 1) answered the phone, and 2) spoke English. I made an appointment to speak with Fr. John (the first Fr. John of several whom God would mercifully grant me the privilege to know). It turned out that he was a convert, a graduate from Asbury Seminary in KY, a place I had some connection with, and had himself first encountered Orthodoxy in Europe. I remember apologizing for attempting to convert the Russians to Evangelicalism while on my missions trip. He told me that those who had come forward at our evangelistic meetings were most likely just after the free bibles we handed out only to those who came forward (bibles which, printed by the Russian Bible Society, contained the full Septuagint OT and were approved for Orthodox use by the Moscow Patriarchate). I was very relieved to hear this. Fr. John’s parish was Antiochian and almost entirely Arab. I went to several Divine Liturgies there, guided by Fr. John’s wife (a sophisticated western European woman, also a convert), whenever I could more or less discreetly get away from my father’s American Baptist congregation.

Fr. John would shortly get transferred to an Antiochian parish in Montreal. I would go on to college in MN, and would there spend time hovering about a Greek parish and two OCA parishes (I would later be Chrismated in the OCA), briefly visiting only two Antiochian parishes before later becoming a member of an Antiochian parish in Memphis, one with another saintly Fr. John. Thus, I suppose I am a spiritual child of Sts. Olga and Vladimir, but in North America it was a priest of Antioch which first offered the help I needed, which is to say, to come to terms with holy Rus and the mark she left upon me, and for all these things I am grateful.

I know some are very frustrated by American jurisdictionalism. I find the stereotypes more or less useless as there are so many exceptions to be found in each jurisdiction. One aspect of jurisdictionalism which I happen to like is the varied placedness the jurisdictions offer - wonderful variety of these placed ecclesial cultures. Such distinctives can aid the work of love, as when one remembers the welcome received at his first Arab coffee hour, or when one remembers the haunting melodies sung by a Serbian matushka/popadija, or when one remembers shots of vodka and ouzo with the Russians and the Greeks (distinctly different experiences), and so forth.

In Stillwater, MN, where I once lived, there are two Catholic churches almost across the street from each other, one started by Germans, the other by Irish. One can see the skeletons of two very distinct parish cultures, though today the parish cultures of the two churches are more or less identical. Such a homogenization of parish culture was inevitable, to be sure, but it might not be bad to reflect upon the fact that some good was lost in this homogenization. Cultural distinctives place us. Whether I happen to sip coffee sitting next to some Arabs, or Greeks, or Russians, matters, and that mattering is a good thing.

not the pre-ascension conditions of His incarnation

Insightful reader Joseph Schmitt sent me this take on a recent discussion here. I quote him with his permission:

In your exchange over historicism and the Orthodox Church's supposed neglect thereof, I offer the following thoughts. It seems that the whole issue can be resolved by a correct understanding of exactly how the Church on earth "incarnates" the Body of Christ. I've seen over and over again how RCC apologists argue that the RCC is somehow more "incarnational" than the Orthodox because we supposedly practice an invisible church ecclesiology in spite of the messiness of history. It appears to me that folks who argue along these lines fail to realize that the Church "incarnates" the post-Ascension flesh of Christ and not the pre-ascension conditions of His incarnation. The risen and ascended Christ is no longer bound by space, time, and history. Since the Church as Body of Christ ontologically subsists in the Person of Christ in Heaven rather than in her earthly members, nothing that we personally do can stain Christ Himself. As Paul states in Ephesians, Christ has been raised to the right hand of the Father, and has RAISED US UP WITH HIM AND SEATED US TOGETHER WITH HIM IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES. If the Church lives "out of" the Ascension, then historicism, as defined in this discussion, is a moot point.

I will add to Mr. Schmitt's thoughts that "the pre-ascension conditions of His incarnation" are what is associated with "Incarnational Christianity" by not just some RCs (and there are plenty of examples of RC thinkers who do not subscribe to this error) but indeed by the vast majority of Protestants today, from Evangelicals to Mainliners. It also occurs to me that von Balthasar's Holy Saturday soteriology of Christ's damnation (descent into hell) is, in a way, an extension of "the pre-ascension conditions of His incarnation" into hell. Now, some will argue chronology and state the obvious, that Christ's descent into hell was prior to His ascension, but Orthodox view His time in Hell in ascension terms and not in passion terms, such a theology of victory being fully codified in Orthodox liturgical texts. One might be inclined to think that it is something of a modern Christian project to extend "the pre-ascension conditions of His incarnation" to every aspect of Christian experience prior to the eschaton. And as Joseph well states, this entirely misses a central point of the Christian faith.

-- Also, as a warning -- Mr. Schmitt sent this as private correspondence to me, not intending it to be read by anyone who might be offended or annoyed by it. He has granted me permission to quote this, but because the thoughts were not meant to be publicly provocative I will not allow personal attacks toward Mr. Schmitt in the combox. As always, I will (for the most part) allow such rhetorical attacks directed towards your Ochlophobist, thus if you are greatly annoyed by the thought here expressed, please direct that annoyance toward the person who chose to post the quote.

property line south of shop, both sides of the fence, no rain.

It has been a slow day today, for us and for the trains.

I took the trans-Siberian across Russia the summer I turned 18; that was my great romantic affair with trains. Since then I have been train chaste, really, though these years in Memphis each workday I listen to the trains cars mate.

There is a necessary loneliness with trains that I both love and hate. Tolkien was right about the whole “phallus which rapes the countryside” image, but the industrial brutality of a train is more slow and overt than other forms, thus, perhaps, more honest. And we have our stories, the train hobos and the like, these human manipulations of the industrial order, that give trains a certain human romance not to be so much found with pixels or 747s or semi fleets or other forms of transportation.

All the millions of tons of steel that pass us each day as we tinker with bits of copper.

the back of the shop, after a rain.

After having to speak for two hours in an exercise of bureaucratic juridicalia yesterday, and then talk about it over and over again with others, the finding of words is a strain today.

It is just as well. Poverty and silence are the natural abode of truth, or so Rouault wrote. Kenosis and the unsounding melody of humility. To spend a life trying to grasp and hold such things when the discipline, all there is to do, is to be held, to accept the heldness. This all feels nice upon first thought of it, but time teaches that silence is experienced as the sharpest of violence. Still, that violence heals, as our elders teach us, if a heart given to the cadence of sin would bear the quiet.

a new standard?

“This is an unparalleled introduction to the Orthodox Church. Comprehensive in its scope, surveying the history and present state of the Church, it is also bold and fresh in its presentation of Orthodox theology and yet, or rather thus, truly traditional. Fr. John McGuckin’s inspired and challenging vision of Orthodoxy reveals a Church entering upon a ‘new spring,’ ready to address the concerns of the modern world, intellectually, politically, and socially, grounded in God’s philanthropy for all his creation.” - Fr. John Behr, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary

“Fr. John McGuckin has succeeded here in an almost impossible task: to offer us a concise, evocative, sympathetic, yet historically sophisticated portrait of the history, faith, and practice of the Orthodox Churches in one highly readable, constantly informative volume. Poet and scholar as he is, McGuckin writes gracefully and engagingly, yet with a theological and spiritual depth that invites all of us to reflect more deeply on what is most fundamental to the Christian faith. The book seems bound to become a classic.” - Fr. Brian E. Daley, SJ, University of Notre Dame

“This volume will be the classical introduction to Orthodoxy at least for most of this century. McGuckin is, in an ascending and unifying order, scholar and poet, convert and Romanian Orthodox priest. The book’s content is clearly set in a twenty-first century context, while being deeply scriptural, patristic and byzantine. The aroma of Orthodoxy wafts through its pages. It serves as the gateway to this Christian community for outsiders and insiders alike, because it is faithful and insight-filled while also ancient and up to date.” - Frederick W. Norris, Emmanuel School of Religion

The above blurbs refer to The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to the History, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture by Fr. John Anthony McGuckin. The book is due to be released June 9, 2008. The publisher is Blackwell. The pre-order cost is a whopping $149.95, which amounts to 31 cents a page, so I sure hope it to be superb, as I think that I will do what it takes to secure myself a copy. Then again, the language of "spiritual culture" leaves me a wee bit leery, and the promise of "an in-depth engagement with the issues surrounding Orthodoxy's relationship to the modern world, including political, cultural and ethical debates" could well mean a disaster, if the book is in keeping with what was written on such matters by the majority of the last generation of well published English speaking Orthodox theologians. But that said, if there is any current English speaking Orthodox theologian who could pull this vast project off well, with a relatively wide reading both within and outside of English speaking Orthodoxy, it is Fr. John Anthony McGuckin.

things may get worse before they get better....

This was brought to my attention during Great Lent. From here:

Nearly identical in tone and spirit [to a statement made by an Armenian bishop], and lack of any clear, prophetic teaching are statements made by His Holiness, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople when he visited San Francisco in 1990 as the metropolitan of Chalcedon as part of the entourage of the then Patriarch Dimitrios of blessed memory. The San Francisco Chronicle recorded this exchange -

Asked the Orthodox Church’s position on abortion, Bartholomew described a stand more liberal than that of the Roman Catholic Church. “Although the Orthodox Church believes the soul enters the body at conception and, generally speaking, respects human life and the continuation of the pregnancy,” Barthlomew said, the church also “respects the liberty and freedom of all human persons and all Christian couples. . . .We are not allowed to enter the bedrooms of the Christian couples,” he also said. “We cannot generalize. There are many reasons for a couple to go toward abortion.” (San Francisco Chronicle-7/20/90 p.A22)

We cannot generalize. Has he read his own work on ecology? I pray that this is a case where the journalist was too forward in his quotations, but given the current EP's fondness for granting Church awards to pro-death Greek politicians, I have reason to believe that the above does reflect his actual view. Then again, the above is so, well, generalized, that one cannot grasp a coherent view in the EP's response.

Κύριε ελέησον.

bluegrass, again..., Memphis, breastfeeding, farms, being here, usual topics...

I have written before of things bluegrass, here and here, and especially with regard to the local bluegrass festival here.

This year, the weather was better than the previous two years, but the turnout was lower.

I saw 5 bands, and almost every band member was said to be from the suburbs. One of them said that his mother took him to a bluegrass festival two years ago, and he thought to himself, "I want to do that" (in a hobby sort of way), and now he leads a bluegrass band. We sat next to a man-made lake, and next to a building which a fine example of 10 year old suburban faux modernism.

I again, as with each time I go to this event, remembered the bluegrass festivals of my youth. Were the songs really sung differently there and then? Technically most of the bands today were fine, but something was off. Was it the setting? Was it my own prejudices, watching fast food chubby white suburban men with K-Love stickers on their SUVs and dressed in shorts and college team t-shirts sing some of the songs of my maternal people? I don't know.

It's free, it's outdoors, most of my extended family goes each year. It is a perfectly fine thing to do. But there is that lingering sense of loss, that my children will not know this music in an "authentic" manner. But I know such sentiments are a farce. Bluegrass, from its beginnings, was made for mass market commercialism. It's just that now it has "made it" and the mass market has moved from predominantly rural folks (and folks who moved to steel towns but remained close in heart to the hollow) to overwhelmingly suburban folks, and the new cultural placement has had its influence on something of the overall aesthetic.

This event is financed in part by a local commercial radio station (which plays old country), and my father and I expressed regret that independent WEVL did not have a role in it. I said that this would require that the event be held in Midtown Memphis, as Midtowners (and I sympathize here) do not come to the cultural abyss of Bartlett. Dad suggested that they would go out of town, say to Somerville, long before they would come to Bartlett. There is a reason for that, and I think that the instinct is a correct one.

Today I thought of the lives my children will have in Memphis, especially should the Lord have us tarry here for some years, as it looks that this may well be the case; I have noticed even a hope that this might work out. I want them to be rooted in the Memphis that is really Memphis, to remember activities which are truly given and connected to this place. I was left with the sinking feeling today that the local bluegrass festival is not such an activity. I will probably keep going to it, but then again perhaps next year we will take the kids to see the canoes and kayaks which race on the Mississippi this first weekend of each May.

It is hard, these days, to know how to be in a place.

Still, in the past week I have learned that the technocrats are saying that there has been a great increase in the number of African-American breastfeeding mothers, breastfeeding being something which I consider to be helpful for the establishment and maintenance of local human orders (perhaps the technocrats should apologize for their role in the horridly small number of African-American and rural white mothers who breastfed in years past, but I digress). I also learned via good JCCVI that there is now a nearby CSA farm, one of the most important expressions of localism in which an urban family might participate. Having come to love this place Memphis, it is good to see her lungs take a clear breath now and again, however short it may be. I pray for many more.

life

I suppose this day is a good one to ask the diaspora of my friends and those unknown to me who are so kind as to read this particular collection of pixels to keep my family in your prayers. Mrs. Ochlophobist is with child again. Baby is due in November (November in both calendars, to be more precise). Should you think of it, your prayers would be most appreciated.

After something of a wait, it seems the floodgates of fecundity have been opened. This suits me well, as probably the only shot a bumbling ochlophobist has at increasing the Lord’s inheritance is by way of helping the Orthodox birth rate a wee bit.

FREE BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL
Bartlett Performing Arts Center
This Weekend, May 2nd and May 3rd:
Friday 6:00pm-10:00pmSaturday 10:00am-6:00pm

As JC put a plug in for Goat Days in the prior thread, I thought I might take the opportunity to remind my vast Memphis readership (all 3 of you), of the annual PICKIN' PICNIC BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL in Bartlett which is this weekend. My family goes every year, and we usually see other Orthodox there. There is BBQ (I think Pig & Whistle), funnel cakes, and other Paschaltide appropriate fare available for sale (unfortunately no beer is allowed, and the Bartlett cops are not the sort to defy). There is a man-made lake right next to the field with the set-up stage housing a flock of perky (read: very mean) foul, and happens to be full of snapping turtles in the event you want to bring your fishing pole. I will be there with Mrs. Ochlophobist and growing family more or less all day on Saturday. I hope to see any or all of you. Directions are here. Other info here.

American Orthodoxy?

[T]here are those who believe that the old pattern of national and religious unity can be simply applied to America. The Church is Greek in Greece, Russian in Russia, therefore it must be American in America—such is their reasoning. We are no longer Russians or Greeks, let us translate services in English, eliminate all "nationalism" from the Church and be one. Logical as it sounds, this solution is deeply wrong and, in fact, impossible. For what, in their cheerful but superficial "Americanism," the partisans of this view seem completely to overlook is that the rapport between Orthodoxy and Russia, or Orthodoxy and Greece, is fundamentally different from, if not opposed to, the rapport between Orthodoxy and America. There is not and there cannot be a religion of America in the sense in which Orthodoxy is the religion of Greece or Russia and this, in spite of all possible and actual betrayals and apostasies. And for this reason Orthodoxy cannot be American in the sense in which it certainly is Greek, Russian or Serbian. Whereas there, in the old world, Orthodoxy is coextensive with national culture, and to some extent, the national culture (so that the only alternative is the escape: into a "cosmopolitan," viz. "Western" culture), in America, religious pluralism and therefore, a basic religious "neutrality," belongs to the very essence of culture and prevents religion from a total "integration" in culture. Americans may be more religious people than Russians or Serbs, religion in America may have privileges, prestige and status it has not had in the "organic" Orthodox countries, all this does not alter the fundamentally secular nature of contemporary American culture; and yet it is precisely this dichotomy of culture and religion that Orthodoxy has never known or experienced and that is totally alien to Orthodoxy. For the first time in its whole history, Orthodoxy must live within a secular culture. This presents enormous spiritual problems with which I hope to deal in a special article. What is important for us here, however, is that the concept of "Americanization" and merman Orthodoxy is thus far from being a simple one. It is a great error to think that all problems are solved by the use of English in services, essential as it is. For the real problem (and we will probably only begin to realize and to face it when"' everything is translated into English) is that of culture, of the "way of life." It belongs to the very essence of Orthodoxy not only to "accept" a culture, but to permeate and to transform it, or, in other terms, to consider it an integral part and object of the Orthodox vision of life. Deprived of this living interrelation with culture, of this claim to the whole of life, Orthodoxy, in spite of all formal rectitude of dogma and liturgy, betrays and loses something absolutely essential. And this explains the instinctive attachment of so many Orthodox, even American born, to the "national" forms of Orthodoxy, their resistance, however narrow-minded and "nationalistic," to a complete divorce between Orthodoxy and its various national expressions. In these forms and expressions Orthodoxy preserves something of its existential wholeness, of its link with life in its totality, and is not reduced to a "rite," a clearly delineated number of credal statements and a set of "minimal rules." One cannot by a surgical operation called "Americanization" distill a pure "Orthodoxy in itself," without disconnecting it from its flesh and blood, making it a lifeless form. There can be no doubt, therefore, that in view of all this, a living continuity with national traditions will remain for a long time not only a compromise meant to satisfy the "old-timers," but an essential condition for the very life of the Orthodox Church. And any attempt to build the unity of Orthodoxy here by opposing the "American" to the traditional national connotations and terms will lead neither to a real unity nor to real Orthodoxy.

-- Fr. Alexander Schmemann, from from his essay "Problems of Orthodoxy in America: The Canonical Problem," as qouted by our priest friend at Ora et Labora (many thanks!).

I will be reflecting upon this brilliant quote from Fr. Alexander in upcoming posts. For the moment I will make five brief points:
1. What authentic human culture existed in American locals in prior generations is now dead, even if it remains in caricature form. Thus Orthodoxy is not to "incarnate" into American culture, or to save or baptize American culture. There is no authentic American culture anymore. Orthodoxy in America must seek to create an American culture. There are certain local cultural "ingredients" which might be used, but what needs to be sought is a new cultural creation.
2. This can only be done by coming to terms with the secularism that rules American life and disabuses what would otherwise be authentic American cultural forms. Until we acknowledge the pervasiveness of secularism and its dreadful hold on virtually all aspects of our lives, we are simply playing the games of boutique religion.
3. The fundamental problem - if one seeks for Orthodoxy to become fully fleshed and blooded in America, completely embedded in the existential ethos of this place and people, how does one go about it in a pluralist society in which all things are sought (usually with success) to be commodified and delegated to a percentage of market share? How does one avoid, on the one hand, becoming a particularly placed fleshed and blooded micro-culture that is separationist (the Amish), or, on the other hand, how does one avoid becoming a religious movement which fully collaborates with secular materialist culture (Evangelicalism)? Assuming that we do not want to run to the hills, how do we fully confront and transform an ever morphing ethereal pluralist materialist übercommodified anti-culture?
4. Should we even be seeking the transformation of America at large? America is colossal, too big in any number of ways. Would it not be more modest, and might it not be more appropriate with regard to discernable human culture, to seek rather a Delta Orthodoxy, an Upper-Midwestern Orthodoxy, a New England Orthodoxy, an Appalachian Orthodoxy, a Pacific Northwestern Orthodoxy, a Canadian plains Orthodoxy, and so forth?
5. There must be no agenda. As soon as we have as our agenda to “win America for Christ” Orthodoxy style, we have become one agenda competing in a saturated market of agendas, and we have then condemned ourselves to petty market share. The American Orthodoxy of mission statements and evangelism strategies is simply more of the Evangelicalish-materialist banality. If there is to be a full existentially realized Orthodox culture in America, it must come to be because this is what Orthodoxy is, how she realizes herself in a place. There is a charismatic and fragile human element to this. Such will not be brought about because Orthodoxy has been marketed well. Ironically, those most concerned with religious market success doom Orthodoxy to cultural failure, precisely because they do not understand their own commitments to secularist materialism, and the fact that there can be no Orthodox-secularist culture that is truly a culture. Not to mention the pragmatically obvious – that in a pluralist-materialist setting, Orthodoxy will never rise above the fray of constant competition (a competition which assumes and implicitly teaches a fundamental relativism among competing truth claims) and the trite mechanisms associated with such an environment.

ochlophobic pensées

1. Peace

In peace let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For the peace of God and the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For peace of the whole world, for the stability of the holy churches of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.

"The Great Litany is also called the Litany of Peace because the first three petitions all concern peace."

For all that is good and beneficial to our souls, and for peace in the world, let us ask the Lord.
Grant this, O Lord.
For the completion of our lives in peace and repentance, let us ask the Lord.
Grant this, O Lord.
For a Christian end to our lives, peaceful, without shame and suffering, and for a good account before the awesome judgment seat of Christ, let us ask the Lord.
Grant this, O Lord.

It is interesting to note that the first three petitions of the Great Litany concern peace, and the last three petitions in the Litany of Supplication concern peace.

How do we conduct our lives in order that they may be completed in peace?

Yesterday, a woman at my parish told me that because of a beautiful unfolding of grace in the life of her family she could now die in peace. What she had most hoped for God had given, and she had hoped for the best thing any parent could hope for. The sincerity of her peace, the apparent fullness of her life, without the chaff of sentiment or worked-up emotion, that quiet confidence that comes with seeing the right completion of things, all this struck me as worthy of veneration.


One notes in the Litanies the relationship between the peace of the soul and the peace of the world.


I have written before of my conviction that the material world acts as a mirror of the state of our souls. This seems to have something to do with our human vocation as mediators between heaven and earth, between spirit and dirt, even between the uncreated and the created. I speculate that the mechanistic determinism we see in effect in the material world might well be a result of man's sin. We find darwinian mechanisms in place, and see occasional "proofs" of these mechanisms, because the world is mirroring a slavery to sin; a vain, meaningless repetition; and, worst of all, the necessity of death (and in postlapsarian biology death is necessary for life). This necessity reflects to us our spiritual state - we are full of violence, and believe that the mimetic forms of violence will save us; that our only hope is in the destruction of life. We then proceed to lust for that destruction, to the point that the acts and signs of destruction often come to be viewed as the very thing that we perceive as life itself.


In the bosom of the Church we find the acts and signs of the undoing of this destruction. Saints who live in complete peace with animals normally associated with violence toward humans. Saints whose reposed bodies remain composed. Contentment found and learned through acts which embrace lack (fasting - the great paradox of human psychology in which one's cup becomes full as one learns to empty it through mimesis of Christ's kenotic letting go). We see in the Church the witness of those who would destroy nothing, who would rather themselves die than any other life be denied, violated, trampled upon, or annihilated. These persons are at peace with the world, and any peace to be found in the world is to be found because these God's holy ones have prayed for peace, and have lived the prayer of peace upon the world.


Still, there is a sea of violence in the post-lapsarian world, and how can we not drown in it? But, of course, in Christ we must drown in it, for there is our salvation. This is not to seek it out, dying with Christ is not an act of sadism. Instead, we hope to face the violence of the world with the stillness that conquers all passion. In lieu of swords we have tears. In lieu of shields we have prostrations. We believe that the most important thing a human being might ever do is to sing the sacred words in the company of the faithful. What a wonder! To follow St. Maximus your singing of all those stichera keeps stars aligned, and maintains the separation of the waters from the dry land. The singing man defies the violence of the world by his disbelief in the finality of the violent act. When we come, in Christ, to accept the violence of the post-lapsarian world as a temporary perversion which has been overcome and will be ended, we can approach death as the completion of a struggle, and not with the meaningless dread or disgust of the nihilists. We can then wear our own temporal end to God's glory, and in doing so, bless the world that kills us, even as it kills us.


The Paschal texts capture a central element of the peace of Christ that is often overlooked, both in the quotidian patterns of an ordinary human life, and in the expression of diminished forms of Christianity. This is the notion that the peace of Christ is not passive. It is not the Taoist yin. The peace of Christ conquers. It takes. It wins. To seek to acquire the peace of Christ is a duty, and it must be done that the world be saved. We often hear and say that in weakness there is great strength, but sometimes this carries a tone of sentiment, and perhaps we lack faith that such a "weak" strength is truly strong. The fear of annihilation keeps us holding on to some of the violent expressions of power. How hard it is to believe that the greatest expression of true and free human power is to bless those who persecute us. That the persecuted blessing man conquers the violence of his oppressors. That the man who blesses all in all seasons truly wants for nothing.


A test of our own peace: I imagine myself on the Day of Judgment. I watch as persons I have struggled to love in life, persons who have wronged me, are brought to the Judgment seat. Do I, in my heart, long for them to be damned? Then I am already in hell. The peace of Christ longs for each person to be saved, each person to be remembered, and offers itself to hell in place of another, even when the other has acted as a man of hate. And this, it seems to me, is the victory. He who freely walked into hell freely walked out of it. Those who clutch to things in order to avoid hell, and would gladly throw others into hell in order to escape it - these are trapped. What irony! The man who denies himself owns all things, even hell, which holds no power over him.


How does one describe a life which has been beautifully completed in peace? How does one describe a beautiful fragrance of a flower? Sweet, delicate, tender, warm, rich - but these sorts of words are always tentative descriptors. You cannot know a fragrance through words, there is only the fragrance, and the experience of its goodness. And so the witness of God's holy ones. At this moment I think of a man who exudes the fragrance of the peace of Christ. When I think of him, I recall the posture of the glorious Prophet Simeon the God-receiver. Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace. There is nothing in the cosmos more beautiful than a holy life. When the eyes fall upon such a man or woman, all that is needed in life has been provided.

the warmth of the south wind

66. If a demon has such strength as to force a man, even against his will, to change from his natural state of goodness into a state of sin, how great must be the strength of the angel who at the appointed time is commanded by God to restore that man's whole condition. If the icy blast of the north wind is strong enough to give water the hardness of rock, what cannot the warmth of the south wind achieve? If extreme cold forces everything to submit to it - for 'who can withstand His cold?' (Ps. 147:17) - cannot heat in the same way alter everything? 'Who can abide the burning heat?' (Ecclus. 43:3). So let us confidently believe that the cold, dark coals of our mind will sooner or later blaze with heat and light under the influence of the divine fire.

- St. John of Karpathos, For the Encouragement of the Monks in India who had Written to Him: One Hundred Texts, from The Philokalia, Volume One.